
.Cy t? 



E 531 
.G86 
Copy 1 



LETTEX^JS 



AND 



MEMORIALS 



OF AN 



m mi;! 



fEMESSEE UBION SOLDIER, 



IN BEHALF OP HIS LONG-SUFFERING AND OPPRESSED COUNTRYMEN, 
UNDEE REBEL ANARCHY IN 1861-2-0-4 — STII.L IN 



THE MIDST OF 



WAR, DES0LATI0:N", and WIDE-SPREAD FAMINE, 



BY 



PETER H. GRISHAM, 

CLERK, h'd-Qb's 2d CAV. DIV., D, C. 



NASHVILLE 



WILLIAM CAMERON & CO., PRINTERS, UNION OFFICE, 
1864. 



LETTERS AND MEMORIALS. 



[For the Nashville Union.] 

Appeal No. 2, from an humble Union Soldier, now long in Activt 
Service, to the Grreat Loyal Armies, Grovernment and People 
of the United States ! 

Once more, 0, my Countrymen! do I pray you in behalf of our long distressed, 
suffering, bleeding and dying kindred and people beyond the Cumberland 
Mountains 1 Twenty thousand of us, perhaps, have run the mortal gauntlet, and 
are now among you, in these mighty, loyal armies, scattered far and wide among 
strangers ; cut off almost entirely from all communication with those so sacredly 
near and dear to our hearts, whom we have long ago left helpless in the bloodj 
hands of the mobs of a most dark and bloody-rebellion. 

We represent the noble freemen of the "highlands and mountains of these 
rebellious States. We come from that great, lovely, and poetic section of our 
great country — called in the writings of learned travelers " The Switzerland of 
America " — the garden spot of this great continent — East Tennessee. 

Three months had hostile armies of traitors been marching, almost daily, over 
our great railroad, toward Virginia and Washington City — striking terror in 
every heart in our land — before our traitorous Governor and Legislature called 
a second time upon us to vote for or against the great free Government of our 
fathers ; and still these loyal people of East Tennessee clung, loith a death grip, 
to the glorious Star Spangled Banner, which waved in such glorious triumph 
over the bloody battles in the long wars our fathers fought for freedom and inde> 
pendence, against despotic and haughty England of old. And, not content with 
merely voting an immense majority for the Union, we have, a goodly number of 
us, voluntarily banished ourselves far aivaij from our once quiet and comfortable 
homes and kindred, escaping the blood-thirsty and subtle traitors — whose mur- 
derous pickets were already guarding the narrow defiles of the mountains — and 
we have now long been with you, with musket, sabre and sword, in active service, 
many thousands of us, for eighteen and twenty months — having left our aged 
mothers and fathers, sisters, loives, and helpless children to be robbed, starved 
and murdered by fiery-flying serpents, in humuan shape, which this horrible 
crater of rebellion and civil war has been throwing out upon them, from the 
Missouri and Ohio rivers to Baltimore, and from the Atlantic to the Gulf of 
Mexico to the Rio Grande. They have even murdered innocent mothers and 
venerable christian fathers, whose hospitalities have often been enjoyed by va% 



The pen need only tonch the names of the venerable Pleasant Pierce, of Knox, 
and Talbot Staples, of Scott, recently murdered by them, to cause the heart of 
many a loyal soldier from those counties to throb with indignant horror I But 
we are cut off from hearing their cries. The daily trains, freighted with many 
thousands of letters, bearing glad tidings and news for your veteran and noble 
patriots from the great free Slates of the North, come in solemn and awful 
silence to us. No mail for us to-day! None last week! nor month! nor year I 
Scattered news and chance letters sometime come by some brave son of Colum- 
bia, who has again eluded the murderous eye of the wily traitors, whose hands 
have long been dripping with innocent blood ! 

We still cry aloud unto you, oh, my countrymen! Put us all together, and, 
well armed and equipped, backed bij you, we tvill cut our own way home to the 
redemption of our long-lost homes and kindred. These months with us drag 
slowly and heavily cdong. We know that our people are fast approachingyamine, 
ruin and starvation, if all these horrors have not already come upon them, unless 
we make great haste to theirrescue and redemption. But we are scattered far and 
wide among you, like wandering sheep among strangers, in the regiments of many 
different States. I enlisted among entire strangers in Kentucky, nearly two years 
ago, and I know what I write to he so. The only news from my father's house and 
family was derived through a brother, who, with eighty>one others, escaped to 
Kentucky in November last, and have mostly joined the loyal armies of their 
country with us. My people had iieard nothing at aXlfrom me, though they had 
tried long and hard to do so. This may be said, no doubt, of thousands of 
others of us scattered wide among you, and when we die, the chance is that no 
tidings of our death will ever reach our dear relatives. I have received the high 
encomium of my commanders, of having taken acti'^e part in the great battles 
near Perryville, Ky., and Murfreesboro', Tenn. ; of being through the arduous 
campaigns under Major-Generals Rousseau, Buell and Rosecrans, in Kentucky 
and Tennessee. From the solemn, silent marches through the streets of Louis- 
ville, in September, 1861, wading the swift waters of Salt River, near Muldro's 
Hill, where I beheld the flames of the first burning Railroad Bridge in Kentucky, by 
the enemy, thence to the ruins of the noble bridge across Green River, which 
they had destroyed; to Grayson, Bowling Green, Nashville, Savannah and 
Shiloh ; to Columbia, Franklin, Shelbyville, Murtreesboro' and McMinnville; to 
Rock Island, last summer ; thence through that dreadfully terrific simoom of war, 
which swept from Chattanooga to Louisville, and Perryville, Ky., under Buell 
and his Generals parallel, and clashing with the armies of the enemy under Bragg 
and Kirby Smith ; and again to the great battle of Stone's River, near Murfrees- 
boro', Tennessee, under the great and noble Rosecrans. 

But my poor services are very insignificant beside the mighty blowswhich you, 
noble freemen, have struck this horrible ogre of treason — this despotic enemy to 
the peace and happiness of all mankind ; which aims at nothing less than to 
rule, with iron rod, over us, this great free people, after having ruined the glorious 
free Government of our fathers. Mark you ! Thirty^five long years by them 
have been spent in subtly plotting out this problem of treason, before they 
plunged our great and happy country into this most horrible civil war. The sons 
of tories of old, in the revolution, published iu their treasonable papers in 1861 
the letters of the English emissary, Russell, which openly announced that " all 
through the South, the cry was : " If we only had one of the royal sons of England 
U) reign over us we would he content ! " 

That's it! And you have it here in book form, published by Russell himself 
in England, and now for sale in Nashville. I have seen it. I saw it in the 
Richmond Dispatrh in June, 1861, while at the Union Convention iu Greenville, 
Tanu.j and mnch mr-rp. of the same. sort. 



Awake, 0, Freemen of Columbia 1 and with your gleaming scimeters show 
them your might and power to mow them down like snakes in the tender grass, 
if they do not submit. 

From ocean to ocean, and from lakes to gulf, this ^'Master Bace" ot traitors 
moitiubth,h&\e\cx\gheQn thoroughly organized, and actively at work. Behold 
a mighty nation of freemen bathed in the blood of her own sons I Turn thekey, 
let Slavery loose ! — the gieat st'e^gthond^ntext of this rehelKan! and we are 
not only safe but will save many thousand of precious lives of noble patriots I 
Put the proud and bloody despots to work or to starve for something to eat, and 
freeze for something to wear, and they will soon forget to go about exciting 
bloody war against the innocent. 

What have the great and enlightened nations of the earth long said to us? 
What says the noble and amiable Queen of Great Britain to us ahcutii? "^You 
load loudly of hhtrty and, i re er cm— yet you wulput up and tellat auction fifty men, 
women and children at a time!" Bloody deceit, to be sure! and and now is the 
time, IF EVER, to lemedy it ! Did not the warning voices of Washington, Adams, 
Madison, Monroe, Webster and Clay, come down to us, thats/at'e?-^ would certainly 
briny these bloody scenes upon us if it was permitted to go on? \es, in thunder 
tones, reverberating down to eternity, they have long pronounced its sentence — 
" Ouilty," — 'Uhe greatest of all evils !" Then why do we cherish it and nourish 
it? This venomous viper in our bosoms striking its fangs into our very hearts! 
Heaven and a dying people cry aloud unto as — Why?. Then let it be emanci- 
pated forever, now! (Jently— t?iough as extracting an eye tooth with the loyal, hni 
rapidly and violently, if tecestary, with theblcody tiaitors! Let the slave go free 
forever to himself. P. H. GlllSHAMj 

Clerk, Second Kentucky Cavalry 



— «» [For the Louisville Journal.] 

APPEAL FEOM AN EAST TENNESSEE UNION SOLDIER. 

On the March, near Stanford, Kt., October 17, 1862. 

lb the Soldiers of the Unicn Armies of the Ohio and the West: 

Fellow-Soldiers: Sixteen months ago I shook hands with my weeping 
aged parents in Eastern Tennessee, and started on the cars for Knoxville, one 
hundred miles on my way to your great loyal State of Kentucky. Here let me 
say that not one spark of news have I bad i'rom my relatives since I left home, 
though I wrote three letters to them on my way out. This is the bitter fruit of 
civil war. From thence I walked, via Montgomery and Monticello, to Liberty, 
Ky. On my way I stopped four days at the last great Union Convention of East 
Tennessee, held in Greenville College, Tenn., in June, 1861, being two days after 
the last election on secession, when the reign of terror caused Middle and West 
Tennessee to overpower the great Union majority in East Tennessee, and voted 
the State out of the good old Union of our fathers. I had been requeeted to 
attend as a delegate to that Convention, instead of my brother, who had been 
appointed at a meeting of our loyal countrymen in Washington county. The 
reign of rebel military despotism and treason was so dreadful, even then, that I 



6 

was afraid to trust any one except my parents and brothers with the knowledge 
that I intended going to Kentucky to volunteer in the Union army. As I a3<» 
cended the south-eastern slopes of the Cumberland Mountains, I turned to give 
a last, long gaze at the fading summits of the Alleghanies, whose lofty ranges 
bounded my native country on the south and east. I wept over my once happy 
but now distracted country, where great armies of their enemy had been march- 
ing eastward for almost three months daily on that great railroad which belonged 
chiefly to loyal Union men, myself being one of the stockholders. 

Having joined, at Liberty, Kentucky, a company of Union volunteer patriots, 
chiefly from Pulaski and Casey counties, Ky., we marched forthwith to General 
Rousseau's Headquarters, at Camp "Joe Holt," Indiana, since when we have been 
drilling, scouting, skirmishinj, and fiirhting, enduring a great many privations 
and hardships, peculiar to all soldiers in the field. 

Fellow-Soldiers 1 I was a total stranger to all I saw of you for nine months 
after I came into Kentucky. Though not permitted to take an active part my- 
self in fighting the bloody battles of the past fifteen months, I have ever beeo 
ready for and went on duty when my superior officers gave the command, in 
whatever capacity I was capable of performing. I was near you as a cavalryman 
in the great battles and glorious victories of Green River, of Shiloh, of Rock 
Island, and of Perryville. I witnessed your heroic bravery in the hottest of the 
last dreadful battle, whilst the messengers of death whizzed about me for hours, 
and I saw and wept over the multitudes of our heroic slain on that awful field, 
where the inhuman enemy left hundreds of their dead unburied, at least for 
several days. 

Fellow-Soldiers ! Soon after my enlistment I read in the homsv'iWe Journal the 
Decliration of Orievmces which we published at the last Convention of loyal 
East Tennesseeaus mentioned above, which I hope may be republished in that 
able paper, that you may have your memories refreshed with their sufferings fif- 
teen months ago. But, oh! think of what has been their distress since I lef\ 
them ; since I came to implore aid from loyal Kentucky and from the great loyal 
States of the North. 

Fellow^Soldiers! here we are yet, on a halt, after driving the armies of the 
enemy from a second invasion of Kentucky through and from mv State; this 
last one through the mountains from my native East Tennessee. There are but 
few good wagon roads over the Cumberland mountains, and the settlements are 
thin, and water at this season is generally scarce ; but are we to stand still, with 
our miy^hty armies and let the enemy hold the gaps until he has them all 
fortified with heavy artillery to murder us when we come ? Multitudes of aged, 
weepiuij fathers have long been waitin? for you to come to their deliverance from 
the burning, iron fetters of traitors. Two hundred thousand loyal fighting Unioa 
men have lonijed in vain for eighteen months for you to come and open the way, 
for them to join you no doubt, until the enemy has killed and imprisoned most of 
their leaders, and the hardy plouirh boys have been forced on the cars and run 
far away from tlieir once peaceful and happy homes to fi<!;ht against their own 
brothers and friends — against their own principles. They have frozen, they have 
starved, they have been murdered, tormented, and distressed in almost every 
possible way we can imagine. Under 'he broad protecting wings of our great 
gevernm"nt the m junlain valleys and regions of Eastern Tennessee, South- 
westeru V:rginii, Western North Carolina and Northern Georgia became densely 
populated with har ly, brave, and loyal hearted people. How few have escaped 
the rebel con -script law and reign of terror I Scarce twelve regiments of them are 
now in our Union lines, mostly under Major General Morgan in Kentucky, 
thou:^h they are scattered through our loyal Kentucky and other Union regiments 
lar and wide by ones and in squads, almost like lost sheep among strangers. 



Then why this halt at Crab Orchard in pursuing the flying enemy? Do not, 0, 1 
pray you, do not delay to scale the rugged mountains and take possession of 
Eastern Tennessee in the name of Heaven and eternal liberty. This done, 
haughty Richmond must soon fall from rebel power. For this would be a flank 
movement on Virginia and Korth Carolina. 

Fellow soldiers ! The mighty victories you have won during the past year should 
stimulate you to yet nobler deeds, if need be, until that banner which long years 
ago waved over the bloody battle-fields of our forefathers in the long wars with 
haughty England, and which has commanded the admiration and respect of all 
civilized nations of the earth ; aye, until that same old flag, under whose victo- 
rious folds fought and suffered ray own aged father and grandfather, who are now 
weeping for it to return, shall again float over free and happy millions from ocean 
to ocean and from the lakes to the gulf; if, indeed not from pole to pole and from 
the rivers to the ends of the earth — until the fair Goddess of Liberty shall sit en- 
throned forever in this glorious temple of liberty, to bless all future ages with 
peace, happiness, and holiness forever, and when all mankind shall enjoy the 
glorious liberty of the sons of God. PETER H. GRISHAM. 

Corporal, Co. F, 2d Reg't, Ky. Cavalry. 



UPRISING OF THE LOYAL MEN IN HAYWOOD COUNTY— CHERO- 
KEE SAVAGES BROUGHT TO FIGHT THEM. 

We call attention to the following deeply interesting communication in 
reference to the uprising of the loyal citizens of Haywood county, near the State 
line between Tennessee and North Carolina. The writer is an East Tennessee 
refugee, and a member of the 2d Kentucky Cavahy. When the rebels bring 
Indian savages to murder, scalp, and, aud cruelly mutilate our noble fellow- 
citizens of the South, who will not bow to the rebellion, why in the name of 
freedom should we hesitate to use every available agency to exterminate the 
brood of traitors? And especially do we urge the consideration of these things 
upon our fellow-citizens of the North. How can any of them, for one moment 
think of making peace with the traitors who are inciting savage Indians to mas* 
sacre the loyal people of the South ? Surely they cannot consent to see us dex 
livered up to the barbarity of these fiends in human form. — EI. Nashville Union 

CHEROKEE INDIANS GUARDING EAST TENNESSEE UNION MEN ! 

MuRFREESBoRO, TENNESSEE, March 6, 1863. 

Editor Nashville Union: — Sir: Enclosed I send you a piece of the "2ri- 
Weekly Banner'^ — dated December 2d, 1862, and found here after the battle by 
me — a rebel paper published in Greenville, East Tennessee, the sequestrated 
home of that great patriot and statesman, Andrew Johnson. You will see in it 
a quotation from the Ashville [N. G.) News,hea.iei ''Exciting Times in Hai/wood," 
&c., which will be very interesting to your very numerous arid intelligent readers, 
especially to our noble, patriotic exile soldiers from East Tennessee. At this 
critical time, in what so much concerns the happiness of all future ages of man, 
when the hopes of the myriad throngs of earth are centered on our success in 
this mortal struggle, battling down the grim, grey walls of proud, haughty, in- 
famous despots, it is well to lay before the bleeding suffering sons of liberty — long 
in exile from homes and kindred, once so happy under the glorious flag of our 
yeaerable fathers — such evidence from rebel papers of their cold-hearted, barbar- 



8 

flos, vindictive cruelty to our patriotic Union citizens who have fallen into the 
hands of those barbarous, infamous traitors. 

I, myself^ am an East Tennessean — have been in the Union army now twenty- 
one months, and have just yesterday received the first news from home since I 
left, in a letter from my youngest brother, who escaped in November last, with 
eighteen others, and is now in Cincinnati. Thanks to your able paper for that 
news I Please print the barbarous piece enclosed. 

PETER H. GRISHAM. 

Cl'k 2d Kentucky Cavalry. 



[From the Ashvillo (X. C.) News.] 

EXCITING TIMES IN HAYWOOD, NOETH CAROLINA- 
WAR AT OUE DOORS. 

In another column we have referred to the forcible rescue of the prisoner 
Franklin, from the jail of Haywood county. Since that article was written, a 
courier has reached tliis place in quest of powder, who states that an army of 
several hundred men from East Tennessee is regularly fortified at the line be- 
tween Haywood county and Tennessee. Some reports put the number at eleven 
hundred, but we suppose it hardly so large. The militia of Haywood to the 
number of 250, with GO Cherokee I"dians, were holding them in check. Runners 
had been sent to Gen. Kirby Smith, informing him of the condition of affairs, 
and asking for assistance. We await further information with anxiety. The 
locality is about 45 miles west of this place, and bordering upon the most disloyal 
portion of East Tenhessee ; and the lorce gathered there is composed probably 
of disaffected men who have fled from their homes to avoid the conscript law. 



Letter No. 3, of an Humble Union Soldier in Exile — Long in Active 

Service — To the Great Loyal Armies, Government and People of the 

United States. 

Most Noble Freemen: — The series of appeals, of which this is the last, which 
I published in the Jjouisville Journal and Nashville Uri'on in behalf of my people 
and countrymen in East Tennessee, who are yet under the dreadful rule and 
license of the mobs of most bloody traitors from all the rebel South ; in which 
also I have expressed very decided sentiments in favor of the emancipation or 
SLAVERY in all countries, especially in these rebel States in this fearful crisis, are 
genuine; composed myself, after mature and long deliberation, for the love of my 
country and my dying people. My jrreatxprrandfather is buried in sight of my 
father's house, where I was born, in East Tennessee. My father and grandfather 
were yet alive a few months agOi and they were both soldiers in the long Revx)- 



9 

lutionary wari with England and the Indians for our independence — fighting for 
this great free government, which is now passing through a final, fierce and 
awful trial with the haughty traitors of these slave States, secretly aided by 
foreign despots. 

It was recently asserted in papers of very suspicious loyalty, that "tJiere are no 
Emancipationists among the people p-oper of Tennessee." It is not so. The very 
reverse is true, or nearly so. The great masses of honest, hardworking people of 
Tennesesee never desired to own slaves, or to have them in their families. They 
always admired the Emancipation sentiments of Henry Clay, of Presidents Jef« 
ferson, Monroe, and Washington, and in the language of Henry Clay, they 
denounce it as ''^7?e greatest of all evils." In the words of John Wesley — the 
great founder of the Methodists — very many denounced it as "tlie sum of all vil- 
lainie-"." This sort were hanged by mobs. But a srreat many of the more un-^ 
selfish, magna'"imnv-,^ and enlightened slaveholders of this great State in past years, 
emaiicipotefi all their slaves — many having large numbers — sending very many far 
away to Liberia, at their own expense. Of that noble number, I will here only 
mention a few, who, to my own personal knowledge, emancipated all their great 
numbers of slaves — all of my own county (Washington] but one. 

The sacred names of two of these departed men I mention with reverence and 
awe ; for I was brought up at their feet. They were the ven« rable and noble 
Valentine Sevier, of Greenville, and Elijah Embree, of Washington county, 
Ihe former of the. stock of the first Governor of lennesi-ee — Maj. Gen. John Sevier. 
The latter, perhaps the most extenswe and energetic Lohmmger of ail the Swthern 
States. They both emancipated all their slaves long years before they died. 
Mr. Embree's brother did the same ; and they carried on for fifty years afterwards 
a]\ the'w ffveat wotUs 20ith free Jd^ed, labor. The late Mrs. Col. Johnson, grand-* 
daughter of Gen. Sevier, the first Governor of Tennessee, emancipated all her 
slaves. The late venerable John Stephenson, and his brother Mathew, did the 
same. The late venerable Presidents of Washington College, Rev. Drs. Mathis 
and Blackburn, and the venerable Mr. Ford did the same; nearly all of them 
having lartje numbers, and all of Washington county but one. Besides many 
others in the same county yet living, sent many slaves to Liberia, having set 
them free by emancipation- Amonj^ ihem are the eminent Judge Luckey and 
Hon. T. A. R. Nelson, and E. L. Mathis, Esq., all of that one county, and there 
are many more whose names are not now remembered. It is useless here to ex- 
tend the list to the hundred other counties in Tennessee nearly or qui'^e all of 
which had similar noble-hearted, unselfish slaveholders, who emancipated either 
all or parts of their slaves. Those were the wise slaveholders who followed the 
councils of the immortal Washington and his great com patriots of past ages, 
who emancipated all their slaves. 

President Jackson prophecied thirty long years ago that the tory nullifiers and 
traitors would next make Slavery their pretext for rebellion and civil war; and 
we now find Slavery to be both the text arid the pretext of perhaps the darkest and 
bloodiest luar the world has ever Icnoivn. The doom of Slavery has come. Its 
dreadful sentence has been long pronounced by the great and good of all nations 
and ages of the world, and it must now come to its final execution, by the Presi- 
dent's Proclamation. 

The day of fierce wrath is upon us, for neglectinsr it so long. Ard when this 
horrid monster, which is the base and strength of this bloody rebellion, is finally exe- 
cuted, add consigned forever to the darkest oblivion of hell, even then, and not till then, 
•hall we begin to behold the face of a reconciled God ; and to enjoy abundantly 



10 

the ble3sing3 and glorious liberty of the sons of God ; when thia dark and dreadn 
ful cloud is removed forever from Our blue, starry skies. Then all haste to ouf 
duties to redeem my dying people! PETER H. GRISHAM. 

Clerk 2d Cavalry Division, 
June 18, 1863. Department of the Cnmbcrlaud. 



[Correspondence of the NashTiHu Union ] 

FROM HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA. 

Headquarters Second Division Cavalrt, D. C, } 
HuNTSviLLE, Ala., March 24, 1S64. J 

Though my home and most of my helpless relatives are yet within the lines 
of the enemy in upper East Tennessee, I wish to express thanks to a thoufjhtful, 
magnanimous and enlightened people in the great free States of the North, for 
the timely and substantial remembrance they have had of the sad, solemn, 
fearful condition of the many hundreds of thousands of innocent, helpless, 
loyal-hearted people dwelling in those regions, embracing the valleys of twenty 
rivers in Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee, West North Carolina and North 
Georofia — now the seat of war, and for the last six months occupied by four 
great armies — two rebel, under Longstreet and Johnston, and the others, our 
own noble armies of the Ohio and the Cumberland, at Fvnoxville and Chatta- 
nooga, far away from their base of supplies, and necessarily often subsisting and 
foraging off the country — the rebel armies doubtless subsisting almost entirely 
upon what little was heretofore left of the last morsel raised by aged fathers and 
mothers, sisters, wives and little children, to sustain life in the absence of nearly- 
all I he able-bodied men, long in either the loyal or rebel army. 

The stormy tempest of a civil war, such as the world has never known, has 
now been raging for three long and dreadful years in our land, and Kentucky 
and Middle Tennessee were the battle-fields until about six months ago the dark 
war clouds of offended justice, tinged with golden borders and starry blue 
linings, then floated aloft beneath the old Star-Span<rled Banner of Freemen, 
over and bc:yond the lofty and rugged Cumberl md Mountains, scattering the 
enemy, driving them partially away after several great and bloody battles ; still 
occupy the most important points in the valleys of twenty rivers in East Ten> 
nessee, on to the summits of the dark and lofty Alleghany and Blue Ridge 
Mountains in North Carolina and Georgia. Thus the central seat of this great 
and dreadful war has now long been at our very doors, and most of that time 
the greater portion of the country held by the rebels, subsisting entirely perhaps 
npon the people there, overrun, robbed and murdered, already the great mobs 
of hungry rebel cavalry and infantry, from the beginning of the war. Their 
loyal sons having long since escaped their murderous pickets in the gaps of the' 
mountains, and enlisted many hundreds among strangers in the regiments of 
Kentucky and many other loyal States, but manr thousands elected their owtf 
officers, and organized into East Tennessee regiments of their own, which have 
6Gen long and arduous service already, and still they come by battalions ana 
regiments. Thus the dark picture of famine and civil w;ir is tingjed with the 
gold and starry diamonds of true loyalty in a brave people, cat oSF from homes 
and kindred by traitors. 



11 

This " Switzerland of America," — garden spot of tbis vast continent — is A 
densely populated region of country, lovely, picturesque and romantic, abounding 
in nearly every resource of wealth in mineral and soil. Her colleges have edu« 
cated very many of the greatest American statesmen in the land — of Governors, 
Orators, Senators, Lawyers, Judges, Doctors and learned Ministers, occupying 
high positions of honor in many different States. Her people, though sadly 
c<«ught napping, and victimized before they could organize and drill for success- 
ful resistance, are nevertheless a brave people, who love the old flag which their 
fathers fought under in the wars of the Revolution and 1812-15. My own vene- 
rable father is one of the living veterans who lought under it then, and would 
do so again if advisable. In siiort, their love for the Star-Spangled Banner of 
their fathers is intense, even unto death. Surrounded almost entirely by lofty 
and widely desolated mountains, as in a vast prison of starvation, but few of 
them can escape to more peaceful and plentiful States, and starvation awaits 
them unless relieved from abroad — a matter we hear is not overlooked by the 
great and good people of the North — in this hour of their distress ; bless the Lord. 

My own term of three years will soon be out. I went out weeping over the 
dark and gloomy prospect, yet full of hope. I returned skirmishing above the 
clouds of Lookout Mountain and beyond, and fighting in the front ranks at the 
great battle of Chicamauga. I was engaged also in the front ranks at Perry- 
ville, Stone River, i- Ik River, and in many severe skirmishes ; was on duty near 
the battles of Pittsburg Landing, Green River and Farmington. My father, 
brothers, students and loyal countrymen are mostly in the Union Armies. 

Upon the heads of a few hundred thousand proud, selfish and rich lordly 
elaveholders of the South rest all the horrors of this war, which has concentrated 
60 much suffering upon the loyal families of East Tennessee. 

They are the ones that should be made to foot the bill for the poor families 
they have brought to so much suffering and death, as long as they have a foot 
of land or a dollar's worth of property left, and then make a partial atonement 
for the many hundreds of thousands they have murdered in tbis war, by forfeit^ 
ing their own lives for their crimes. 

It was all done to perpetuate slavery — that most scandalous and foul stigma 
npon our national escutcheon. The blood thirsty traitors wished to lord it not 
only over the blacks but over the great masses of poor loyal hearted white people, 
whom they have so utterly ruined and murdered in trying to accomplish their 
Tillainous ends, to establish themselves as proud, haughty, selfish and devilish 
masters and lords over the honest, industrious people of this great and once 
happy land of Columbia. 

The Constitution of the United States never did strictly justify these proud 
people in holding slaves ; on the contrary, its whole tenor is against slavery, and 
for liberty and freedom to all men, of all colors, except as a punishment for 
crime after trial. It guarantees protection to life, liberty and property to every 
person, no matter what color. It guarantees a republican form of government 
to every State and every man — of every color, nation or climate among us. 
Thus it knocks the whole " peculiar institution " into pie, and no where jutifiea 
it at all when it speaks of certain persons owing service to certain other per- 
eons, manifestly intended for persons making voluntary contracts, or for bound 
apprentices for a few years only, and not from age to age, as they claim for this 
guilty institution of slavery. 

Our people suffered this false intrepretation to be given, until now, at last, it 
is brought to judgment at a fearful cost of blood and treasure. Its crinies of deep- 
est die and crimson hue have ascended to Go^, and a vi lent death is the coo- 
sequence, instead of following the example of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, 
llonroe, Randolph and their great compatriots of old, who eraancipattd all the 
olATes Uiey had — many of them never had any at all. 




12 013 703 639 3 

W« need to have that same old Constitution circulated more among these 
people South, that they may read it and correctly interpret it for themselves. 
Washington's Farewell Address also, and the Declaraiion of Independence 
ought to be circulated more South. It is almost impossible to find any one of 
them in the Slaves States. They are most too radical for circulation among 
slaves and poor whites. These rich and haughty slaveholders have been aiming 
to establish a system of Lords and Manors in this free country, worse than that 
of England and other monarchical countries, where only a few men own all the 
lands and the great masses of working people are tenants at their mercy from 
age to age. They actually openly advocated this sort of doctrine in their papers, 
and it is the design of their rebellion, if successful. It must not — nay, may we 
not say in the free spirit of our fathers, it shall not he alloiced? They have had 
brother fighting against brother, and friend against friend — and cannot help 
themselves ever since this war began. They kill the deserters, if caught, and 
they murder prisoners captured from the Union army, and if continued, we will 
make the earth drunk with their blood in retaliation. 

When we climb to the top of this beautiful tree of liberty, planted by Wash- 
ington, we are surprised to find, that its broad branches, clothed with evergreen* 
leaves, spread in every direction, and intended to protect the liberty of all men 
of every nation, color and tongue, who come under its refreshing shadows. And 
yet we find ourselves in the midst of a civil war brought on expressly to perpet- 
uate the iron fetters of slavery on many millions of sable colored men, by those 
of a paler face. This is the stigma upon our national escutcheon which has so 
long been pointed out to us by people of kingly governments, and as scandalous 
foul stigma now bathed in the people's blood. Wipe it out! noble freemen! 
Wipe it out NOW and FOREVER! Purify the moral atmosphere under this 
noble tree of LIBERTY! The martyrs for it already count many hundreds of 
thousands in the last three years,but the star of morning begins to shine in all its 
brilliancy, and victory is yours. The millenium of glory may soon come. A 
thousand years of bliss for our long distracted people, in heaven's liberty. 

P. H. GRISHAM. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 703 639 3 



